DOMINICAN REPUBLIC THEATERS TO BENEFIT FROM EX-IM BANK SUPPORT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 15, 2000
Media Contact Name/Phone
Andrew Yarrow (202) 565-3200

The Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank) is providing financing to help two American companies export movie projection and sound equipment, as well as electrical generators, to a movie theater chain in the Dominican Republic.

Cinema Equipment Inc., of Miami, FL, and Kohler Company, of Kohler, WI, are selling $1,048,335 of equipment to Wometco Dominicana, which will use it in some of the 16 multiplex theaters the company owns in the Dominican Republic. The generators will serve as an alternate power supply because of the unreliability of public electricity in the country.

Cinema Equipment, which employs 15 people and has doubled its sales in the last two years to approximately $9 million, exports motion picture cameras, projectors and other equipment principally to countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Kohler Company is a diversified business with 18,000 employees that is best known for its plumbing fixtures, but also manufactures generators.

This transaction has helped us increase sales and expand our markets, said Jaime A. Sanchez, sales representative for Cinema Equipment. Everything has gone so smoothly that we have referred Ex-Im Bank to our clients in Brazil.

Ex-Im Bank is providing a $981,787 five-year comprehensive guarantee to support the loan by RZB Finance LLC, of New York, New York. Ex-Im Bank authorized $27.9 million in financing for U.S. exports to the Dominican Republic in fiscal year 1999.

This transaction is a good example of how Ex-Im Bank financing can help US businesses large and small tap into the global marketplace, said James A. Harmon, Chairman of Ex-Im Bank. While upholding our high standards for creditworthiness, we facilitate export sales to emerging markets such as the Dominican Republic that otherwise might not be possible.

Ex-Im Bank is the official export credit agency of the United States. Its mission is to help finance the sale of US exports primarily to emerging markets throughout the world, by providing loans, guarantees, and insurance. During fiscal year 1999, Ex-Im Bank supported nearly $17 billion in US exports.